


Ramadan Mubarak

by TheGreatLibraryFangirl (Mazeem)



Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Author Is Not Religious, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fasting, Food, Gen, Muslim Character, Muslim Holidays, Post-Canon, Ramadan, Religious Content, Religious Discussion, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27839668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazeem/pseuds/TheGreatLibraryFangirl
Summary: Dario turns up to support Khalila on the first day of Ramadan after she is confirmed as Archivist. Turns out she's gathered rather more support than he'd realised.
Relationships: Dario Santiago/Khalila Seif
Comments: 8
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [This timeline](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20143462/chapters/47722252/) suggests that the Great Library series ends in November 2032. According to the calendars I've seen, the month of Ramadan, in 2032, will start on the 4th of December. So I thought this might be an interesting alternative to a Christmas-themed fic, especially for the most religious character. 
> 
> It is essentially a combination of a few post-series headcanons and an info-dump of things I've learnt about the month of Ramadan. There will be a currently unknown number of chapters. (Three??)
> 
> This is from Dario's PoV because this non-religious, culturally Christian author thought it might help her cover her back for mistakes lol. 
> 
> All mistakes are mine, and made with the best intentions. Please do offer corrections.

Dario yawned as he navigated the softly glowing corridors of the Lighthouse. There was no stunning view from the windows as he passed. It was still dark outside.

He'd seen a few four o'clock in the mornings in his life, but never at the heart-thumping herald of an alarm clock, yanking him from his exceedingly comfortable bed. Still, it was a minor enough thing to do to support Khalila. 

Anyway, she'd said that he could go back to sleep afterwards. 

He reached the doorway to the Lighthouse's communal dining area, and was unsurprised to see it more heavily guarded than he'd seen it before. It was less than a month since Khalila had been confirmed as Archivist, and it was easier to count their allies than their enemies, let alone the even larger number of countries and organisations who were being carefully, watchfully neutral. 

He was, however, surprised by the low hum of voices he could already hear from outside the hall as he gave his name to the guard. When he opened the door, he had to blink for a moment so that his sleepy brain could take the sight before him. 

The dining room wasn't full by any means - it could, in theory, seat more than five hundred Scholars - but there were far more people in the room than Dario had expected. Scholars of all ages and bands, and High Garda too, who would normally breakfast all the way over in the High Garda compound. There was a lot of black from Scholar's robes and High Garda uniforms, but also vivid splashes of colour everywhere from traditional, formal outfits. All different types of headgear, or none at all. Khalila's announcement really had spread. 

Keeping on the very important topic of food - all the plates he could see were empty! His stomach growled. Just as he was about to be disappointed, he spotted where he belonged. 

Khalila was out of sight, but Dario saw first Cap- no, _Commander Santi_ , then Glain, then ... Jess? 

That pricked Dario out of his daze, and he strode through the room, attracting the quick, assessing gazes of visible security staff and probably lots more that he couldn't see. 

Thomas waved as he approached their table, and Santi, Glain and Jess all nodded.

"I thought your nocturnal days were over, scrubber?" He wanted to say smuggler, but swapped it out at the last minute. Best not to proclaim things like that in a hall full of strangers in these fraught times. 

"It's really not that early." Jess gave Dario a pitying look. "For those of us with self-discipline, anyway."

Dario glared right back. "It's still _dark_ outside!" 

Jess snorted with what looked like genuine laughter, and muttered something that Dario didn't quite catch about English winters. He looked thin and pale and strained, but that was nothing unusual these days. Steady improvements were a double-edged sword on all of their nerves; from what Dario understood Jess was having near-daily arguments with most of the Medica department over his differing definitions of concepts like "recovered" and "exertion." 

"Late as usual, Santiago." Scholar Wolfe, seated next to Santi, gave Dario a familiar sharp look.

Automatically Dario glared back - one Scholar to another, these days - but his empty stomach dropped. "Khalila said I just needed to be here for five! I'm nearly half an hour early!"

Wolfe raised his eyebrows as if he thought Dario were lying, but then something softened in his expression. "Luckily for you, we expected this." He had two plates in front of him, one empty and one full, and he slid the full one across to Dario.

"Thanks." There was an empty seat opposite Jess, next to Thomas, but Dario looked up the long table instead, trying to find Khalila. He missed her. He always missed her, these days.

There she was! He'd checked the head of the table, but no, her father was seated there, with Khalila on his left in a beautiful pink headscarf and brown dress, and her older brother Saleh on his right.

"Good morning," he signed respectfully, once he'd managed to catch the old man's gaze. It had been a pleasant discovery that Khalila's father was fluent in sign, and it was useful to not need to raise his voice.

"Good morning, Scholar!" Khalila's father spoke in reply as well as signed, and Dario's heart leapt as Khalila's head snapped up from the Blank she was studying. Her smile made an answering expression strain his own cheeks.

"Ramadan Mubarak!" she exclaimed. Dario would never tire of the way her tone changed when she spoke her native tongue.

Damn it, he'd forgotten that! He tried to repeat the special greeting like he'd practised, but his terrible accent was drowned out by a general mumble of it throughout the room. A sense of anticipation rose like steam in the air.

Khalila half-rose to her feet, a look of laughing panic on her face, and called out, "Not yet, everyone! Sorry!" The message spread across the table, and relaxation settled again. Khalila tapped the Blank in front of her as Dario walked quickly to her. "The very nice muezzin at my mosque has said he will tell us when we need to pray, in case we can't hear the call from all the way at the Lighthouse. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. It depends on the wind."

Her older brother Saleh leaned a little further over the table and made eye contact with Dario. "She has an official prayer timetable, _imsakiyya,_ open and she's done calculations herself, but still she's fretting."

She was indeed, from this close Dario could see the tension in her back and arms. He wanted to stroke her shoulders to help calm her, but their engagement was still a secret and Khalila still had dilemmas about their physical contact around her father. Instead, he knelt down next to her and said, "Ramadan Mubarak," with the very best pronounciation he could.

"Ramadan Mubarak," she replied, in a thoroughly distracted tone. When she properly noticed him, her eyes widened. "I'll get you a chair ..." She started to look around, so Dario put a hand on her forearm to stop her.

"It's fine, _bella_ , I'll go back to annoy Jess and the others in a moment. Leave you to do the religious bit properly." He tucked his hand nearly into the crook of her elbow, where both their bodies shielded it from a casual glance from her father. "I must say," he lowered his voice, "this isn't what I expected when you said you'd organised a little group meal before the start of Ramadan." He looked down disconsolately at his plain clothes. "I would have dressed in something more suitable."

"You look lovely," she said, and the briskness of her tone passed him by for once because she was gazing into his eyes in the most delightful way as she said it. "But no, I didn't quite expect this either." She cast a glance around the room, and smiled. "Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that my experience last year was not unique to me. I am glad that there was a mosque I could go to for celebration and community, but it was lonesome to experience the holy month without my loved ones or any familiar faces." She squeezed Dario's hand. He squeezed back. He'd heard this before, but it seemed to be calming her down to go over it again so he put on his very best listening face. It did make him sad to think of her waking early in Ptolemy House and doing everything so utterly alone. Though, quite frankly, he was still stunned to realise that she'd survived Wolfe's classes on no food or water. " _Suhur_ isn't necessarily a communal affair like _iftar_ is, and I'm not expecting people to turn up every day, but I thought it might be nice for the first day." She gave a self-deprecating little laugh then raised her voice. "It's easier to find meaning in this than in waking up, gobbling food by your bedside and then going back to sleep after prayers, isn't it, Saleh?"

"Perseverance, _Alhamdulillah_ ," Saleh replied, obviously responding to an inside joke. Dario wondered if he looked at his little sister in the same fond, reverent way that Saleh looked at Khalila. He hoped so, or that he might one day. 

"You're making me jealous, children," their father sighed. Dario looked at him and wondered what to ask.

"Father can't fast," Khalila explained. Her father gave her a look that forcibly reminded Dario of Wolfe and seemed to mean 'Don't interrupt.'

"Not even medications are permitted during daylight," he continued. "The Medica was sympathetic but unyielding in saying I could not safely alter my medication schedules to such an extent." He shrugged and sighed. "Inshallah, perhaps next year."

Dario caught Khalila's sharp glance with Saleh. Ah. Still having family arguments over their father's health, then, which from what he understood had been poor even before his imprisonment. Returning his attention hurriedly to him, Dario frowned. "Is that bad? That you can't? Do you have to, I don't know, repent or something?" His only point of reference was the way that the Catholic church of his childhood had intertwined fasting with penance.

Khalila's father shook his head. "Not at all. Allah is wise and merciful, he does not wish us to harm ourselves. I may donate food or money to needy causes instead of fasting, and there is still much reflection, worship and self-improvement I can achieve." He pushed his chair back, and Saleh rose to offer his arm as a standing aid. "It's getting close to Fajr now, isn't it?"

Khalila checked her Blank, then the clock on the wall. Dario checked too. It was exactly five 'clock. "Yes. Eleven minutes."

"Well, then. I don't eat at the speed of light like you young ones. I still need to wash."

Khalila rested her head lightly on top of Dario's as her father and brother walked away. "Father's a little nervous. He's the oldest person who's memorised the Quran in the room, so he's agreed to lead the prayers this morning."

Dario made an acknowledging sound. Then her words snagged in his mind, and he listened to them again. "There are multiple people in here who've memorised the Quran?"

Khalila gave him a reproachful look. "At home it is considered a mark of an aspiring Scholar to prove their dedication to knowledge as well as to Allah by memorising the Quran. I'm sure there will be similar traditions in other Muslim countries and communities. There were certainly a lot of hands raised earlier!" She laughed.

"So you've done it?"

"Mmhm. Though I should practise more." She picked up her Blank again, and absentmindedly stroked the nape of his neck where his hair was a little neglected and untidy. Dario let her busy mind dwell wherever it had gone now, and watched her father wash himself in the basins at the other side of the room. That at least was familiar. He'd seen Khalila do that many a time.

He remembered Khalila explaining to him why she could in certain situations clean herself with soil, but that was during their imprisonment in Philadelphia and he preferred not to dwell on that period of time if possible, so he let the memory slide away before it got distracting. Quickly, he risked pressing a kiss to her shoulder. "I'll let you get on."

He sat next to Thomas and grabbed his plate of food, then kicked Jess under the table until he got a much harder kick back. It settled him, somehow.

"Khalila all right?" Jess asked. Not the insults Dario was expecting.

He shrugged and paused in his rapid eating. "I've seen her worse. But I've seen her better before receiving thousands in the hall, to be honest. When did she get here, does anyone know?"

"Three o'clock," Santi said, with a faint tone in his voice which suggested that he too, had been here overseeing for that long.

"This is important, in the personal way rather than the larger abstract she has dealt with so far as Archivist." That was Wolfe. Casually interrupting their conversation to make them feel small, the bastard. "And not just to her. She knows it's an important moment for most gathered here." He reached past Santi and stretched over the table to steal half a roll from Dario's plate.

"Yes. I feel like I'm out of place," Dario admitted.

Thomas patted his shoulder. "If she didn't want us here to support her, she wouldn't have asked."

Time ticked by, and the room got busy. Dario joined in shoving tables aside, creating a huge empty space for people to lay their prayer mats. Only now, as people lined up shoulder to shoulder, did he notice the big paper arrow hastily adhered to one wall, showing the direction of prayer.

Then, at eleven minutes past five in the morning, even as Khalila's abandoned Codex buzzed with a message, they could all hear, very faintly through the open windows, the deep, stirring call to prayer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me @ me: oh there's plenty of time to get a chapter out that mentions the cute kids festival!
> 
> Me @ me: there's even time for chapters about other things first!
> 
> Me, two weeks later: Frantically shoving this first draft out into the world because the Rules Brain says it MUST be posted on Friday the 17th of December, same as in the fic.
> 
> Ffs  
> This will get edited another day.

Dario had been waiting for over an hour, wandering aimlessly around the square and seeing which of the stationed High Garda could be distracted. Everyone else had spilled out of the mosque twenty minutes ago, head-coverings flaring in the strong breeze, some bright-eyed and joyful and some solemn. 

He'd already known about the Friday prayer - he had escorted Khalila to and from this mosque many times in their six months of false peace after postulancy. But apparently the congregation was even more meaningful during Ramadan. 

Everything seemed more intense during this month. Dario wasn't sure he would manage it, himself. He'd been into Easter at one point. Death and resurrection was always the most impressive bit to his child-mind. Lent in the lead-up, where he and Ramon used to compete to tempt the other into eating or doing what they shouldn't. But still. They'd been allowed most food, and always water. 

This was ... intense. He understood why it would be difficult to go through this month on your own, or somewhere new. 

Here, at last, came Khalila - or rather, the brief bright burgundy glimpse of her outfit before the High Garda closed its protective ranks around her. Dario could just about see the top of Saleh's head, and assumed her father was there too. 

That flicked a sore spot inside Dario, and he put more than a hint of imperious swagger into his stride as he walked straight up to the guards. 

One head turned to regard him, and then suddenly the ranks opened for him. His chest relaxed. Still allowed in, then. 

"Good afternoon." He bowed low, showing his respect to Khalila's father. They all chorused their greetings, and he tried his utmost not to just stare at Khalila like the lovesick fool that he was. She looked glorious, resplendent in a flowing burgundy trouser suit and matching hijab. She smelled amazing too - he could smell her jasmine and amber perfume from further away than he usually stood. 

"Thought I'd escort you home." He shrugged. "Like we used to. But ..." He waved a hand at her loving family and her necessary guard of honour. "I'm superfluous." 

"How gallant of you," she said, in that light mocking tone that he loved and hated with equal measure. He always deserved it. Then she blinked and lost the self-assurance. "Oh! Were you waiting long? We stayed behind to offer extra prayers."

"I suspect he noticed." Saleh smirked at her.

Dario walked back to the Serapeum with them, and gently tangled Khalila's fingers with his own under the sweeping cover of their long sleeves. She let him do it, then curled herself free and climbed up to her office. Such a long way away. 

"Will you join us for iftar again?" Saleh asked him, in their carriage back to the Lighthouse. 

"Of course," Dario replied. He had every other night so far, after all, and here they were on the seventeenth of December, the fourteenth day of Ramadan. "What time is it?" Iftar's timing hadn't changed very much so far, but he didn't want to get something wrong.

Saleh shrugged and looked towards his father, who sighed and raised his Codex in a threatening manner that Dario, after a tense moment, deduced was faked.

"Around five, Scholar," Khalila's father said with a smile. He went back ... to what? He was wriggling the fingers of his right hand, very gently, and his lips were twitching.

Dario must have stared too hard, because Khalila's father glanced up at him.

"I'm surprised you don't recognise this. I know Khalila likes to do ... adhkar ... ah, Saleh? Remembrances?" Saleh made an agreeing noise at the translation.

Oh! Now that he'd said that - "She has a necklace," Dario said, uncertainly. "I used to call it a rosary."

"Misbaḥah _._ It is a tool to help us make dua to Allah, to bring us closer to Allah through thinking of him."

"Right. Misbahah. Thank you." Dario repeated it to himself as the carriage rolled onto the causeway that joined the Lighthouse to the mainland. He had definitely seen Khalila counting out certain prayer phrases on her necklace. Had she done it on her hand too, before, and he'd never noticed? It seemed likely, with the number of unpleasant circumstances they had been in together where she hadn't had the necklace.

He took the stairs to his room, leaving them waiting for the lift. "I look forward to seeing you again at iftar." He bowed again, and Khalila's father and brother returned it. 

* * *

By ten to five in the afternoon, Dario was ready and settled in the eastern Library garden. A statue of Nabu, the Mesopotamian god of writing and wisdom, had been carefully moved into an adjoining garden, and in its place was a huge tent.

"This was originally an Egyptian tradition," Khalila had explained when he'd first seen it, "and I think it's a lovely way to ensure that we can share the bounty of iftar with those less fortunate."

Dario had wrinkled his nose at that. Even two weeks later, he was still uncertain about just ... allowing random Alexandrian people to sit under the tent. The gates of the Great Library weren't usually so .. open.

(There. He'd just thought that without thinking 'commoner'. He was improving!)

Still, there were enough soldiers here for a degree of peace of mind, at least, both officially on guard and sat down. On the far side of the tent, Dario could see Captain - damn it - Commander Santi talking to the gate guards. A few seats down, he could see Glain and Jess chatting to a tall, cavaderously thin soldier with a strong Ethiopian accent. Someone Jess knew from his High Garda training, Dario assumed. It was still strange to think of Jess as having been a soldier. Dario had so rarely seen him in uniform, what with everything that had happened.

From previous experience, he knew that the Library caterers were waiting in a long chain indoors, trying to minimise the amount of time food spent away from the heat. On the tables, currently pushed to the side to create some praying space even though the garden was amply sized, there were jugs of fruit juice and plates piled high with bulging red dates.

Dario grimaced at the thought. He had tried. He kept trying. He just hated dates, that was all.

The road from the streets of Alexandria through the gates of the Library was lined with beautiful lanterns. Phanous Ramadan - Ramadan lamps. They were Dario's favourite decoration of the whole month so far - observing the patterns thrown by light shining through their intricate perforations could easily occupy his mind until it was time for prayers and food. Another Egyptian tradition, Khalila had pointed out.

The call to prayer rang out from the mosque, and straight on its heels, a young, newly-qualified Scholar stood up, cleared their throat nervously and recited words that, by now, Dario was almost able to follow along with.

" _Allahuma inni laka sumtu wa bika aamantu wa ‘alayka tawakkaltu wa ‘ala rizq-ika aftarthu_ O Allah! I fasted for You and I believe in You and I put my trust in You and I break my fast with Your sustenance." 

Everyone headed for the tables, picking up dates and pouring cupfuls of juice. Thomas had volunteered to help with the jugs, to speed things up. Right now, this meant that he was pouring people drinks, but Dario knew that look in his friend's eye. There was some sort of drinks dispensing mechanism brewing in that unfathomable brain.

Next the by now familiar rows formed as people, refreshed and rejuvenated by their brief sugary boosts, assembled to prayer. Low hums of 'Allahu Akbar' resonated, even in the wide open space, and Dario found himself mouthing along and unconsciously tucking his hands against his stomach just as Khalila was doing in the fourth row.

He'd have to snap out of that. She would be disappointed, surely, if she saw him emptily aping something whch held such meaning to her. 

Prayers spoken aloud always seemed chaotic to Dario, and these were no different. Although the sheer number of people meant a vague rhthym percolated, some people were monotone and some were mellifluous, some spoke the Arabic clearly and some mumbled. And that wasn't even accounting for the sheer number of accents. How was Dario supposed to keep track of where they were? 

As usual, the conclusion of the third prayer unit took Dario by surprise, and also just as usual, Wolfe was on his feet and chivvying them to start moving the tables as if he'd known it was coming.

Eventually, the tent was rearranged with rows of tables and the Library caterers streamed out to lay out seemingly endless plates. None of it would be wasted - it was all distributed afterwards.

Dario couldn't help but smile as Khalila settled into the seat next to him, with Saleh on her other side.

"I asked Wadida to make you a few extra pakora," she murmured confidentially in his ear. A shiver went down his spine, and he scolded himself for that. It was easy to distract himself - he did adore Indian deep fried food. 

(The thought of Scholar Prakesh made him freeze for just a breath, in and out, and then he dismissed that back to the shadows of his mind.)

That was the most exciting bit about this very large multi-national Library version of Ramadan, as far as he was concerned. There were so many nationalities who celebrated the month, and Khalila had striven to provide everyone's cuisine. So, yes, Indian pakoras and bhajis, and hana batata, tasty chickpeas, and ... other cuisines that Dario wasn't piling on his plate. Morrocan harira soup, Indonesian sweets, flatbreads, Nigerian jollof rice, and even ... hm, these were new.

"Manti," Wolfe said, before Dario had even reached for that plate. "Central Asian. Steamed lamb dumplings."

"Thanks," Dario said, in his most sarcastic, I-didn't-ask voice. Wolfe slapped the back of his head in a gesture that Dario was starting to think might be fond, and reached over him to grab one of the large dumplings.

Everyone always ate too much at iftar, so Dario didn't feel too bad about doing the same. You weren't supposed to, apparently. You were supposed to only eat enough to sustain yourself and avoid any stomach issues. But, come on, who could resist this spread?

Khalila, for one. Her father kept sliding her food and she kept sliding it straight to Dario.

"Last night I ate too much again and my stomach grumbled straight through the taraweeh prayers and stopped me sleeping," she lamented when Dario raised his eyebrows.

"Give some to Thomas, then, I'm getting uncomfortably full and there's still dessert left."

"Sorry." She smiled. "Mustn't keep you from dessert." Her gaze shifted over his shoulder, then she gasped and grabbed his hand. As Dario spun in his chair to see what had put that delighted look on her face, he heard her loudly exclaiming in Arabic and Saleh replying.

Up the lantern-lit path from the Alexandrian streets came a procession of brightly-dressed children. Some looked old enough to be embarrassed, and others looked young enough to be wobbly on their feet. Dimly, in the distance, Dario could see people gathered by the gates. Parents, he assumed.

Nonplussed, he stared at Khalila, who clapped her hands and knocked her head briefly against his shoulder.

"Aren't they adorable?! It's a tradition on the fifteenth of the month of Ramadan."

Dario got as far as opening his mouth before he remembered that the Islamic new day started at sunset. So it was the fifteenth now. No correction needed. He was fine.

"They're going to sing a song!" Khalila hissed, bouncing in her seat and waving silence at him when he tried to ask more. Saleh leaned around her back and waved his Codex, mouthing _I'll explain_.

 _It's not really a Saudi thing_ , his handwriting curled across the message page of Dario's Codex, _more Gulf, but when we were young we would sometimes go to visit our grandmother's family in Qatif and we'd be allowed to join in. Khalila said there was a Gulf diaspora here, and some Scholars, so she put word out to see if anyone wanted to add this stop to their door-to-door. Good memories. Good sweets, too. Look at the commander._

Look at, what? Dario squinted around for Santi, then laughed out loud as he spotted the commander on his knees in front of the tiny emsemble, holding open a huge sack of sweets.

The children sang, in a mess of sound hardly more pleasant to Dario's ears than the discordant praying earlier, and yet somehow it didn't bother him. Neither of them. He just watched Khalila's delight as the children received their sweets. Caught Jess watching too, with a similiar misty look on his face, and wondered what English tradition this was aping.

Still much of the night to go. Ramadan. It was intense.


End file.
